


Solidarity

by birdcages7



Series: Tumblr Prompts/Shorts [9]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Lung Cancer, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-28
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:26:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25568977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/birdcages7/pseuds/birdcages7
Summary: Steve’s thumb worried a daisy. He’d felt a bald spot in the shower a few days ago. In reality, he’d tried to ignore a lot of what was happening. How he couldn’t keep food down all that much, how his back teeth just ached constantly, how all he wanted to do was sleep even on a good day. How much hair he’d wake up to on his pillow, quickly brushing it away before it could be seen. How Billy played with it less so he wouldn’t pull any out accidentally.This was never said, but Steve wasn’t stupid.So here he was, sat in front of the bathroom mirror, facing reality.
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington
Series: Tumblr Prompts/Shorts [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1785595
Comments: 14
Kudos: 120





	Solidarity

Steve breathed deeply, looking at himself in the mirror. It had been a long six months, already he didn't look the same. At least he didn't think he did. His face looked thinner, but that was probably because he wasn't eating that much anymore. He tried but nothing really stayed down that long, things had started to taste different. He gripped the towel around his shoulders, fluffy and pink. A housewarming gift from, someone. Mrs Henderson probably. It looked like something she would buy. It was one of the smaller ones from the set. They all had little daisies embroidered into the shorter edges.

Really, Steve's fingers craved a cigarette. Something real to hold that would make him feel better. Something to play and fiddle with. Something to take his mind off what was about to happen. Something that would burn and make his head swim for just a moment. But he’d given up after the diagnosis. Doctor’s advice.

_ It would all go  _ better _ if you gave up smoking. _

Steve didn’t even really smoke that much, at least he didn’t think so. A packet would last him a week, easily. Just a couple a day. Three if he’d had a stressful time at work. Four if he was drinking. Billy was much worse. That boy smoked like a chimney, especially since getting a place together where there were no rules about smoking indoors. He still tried to keep it by the window so their small apartment didn’t smell horrifically stale though.

Billy gave up when Steve did. A show of solidarity. Meant they were both crabby bitches for a good few weeks, but it had mellowed out in time. There were bigger things to worry about now than a lack of nicotine.

It had been two weeks between diagnosis and the first round of treatments. Steve’s mom had come home first, flew back from her family home in Italy and just cradled her boy like he was still a baby. That was the second time Steve had cried about it all, sobbed into gentle arms and a warm soul. The first time had been the night of the diagnosis, when it was written down in black and white. 

Lung cancer, thankfully caught early but would still require chemotherapy. 

He’d stayed silent all day, Billy not once leaving his side, not once letting go of his hand for more than a few minutes. Promising everything would be okay. He’d pick up another job, extra shifts, anything. Steve was going to be okay, Billy was going to make it all work somehow. He had gold jewellery to sell, blood in a pinch, bone marrow and a kidney if it really came down to that.

_ I’m a walking bank baby. Chock full of good shit. _

Steve hadn’t really been paying attention. Everything just went by in a blur. And then it was dark outside. They were in bed even though neither could sleep and Steve couldn’t remember getting there. He was just staring at their ceiling light, not even turned on, didn’t even register he was crying until it was rolling off his body in great waves, crashing through the sheets. Dragging Billy down with him like a whirlpool, who’d cried too but tried to remain strong and supportive above all else. Bundled Steve up in strong arms and held the taller boy against his wide chest. He just remembers falling asleep, passing out from exhaustion and dehydration and to the sound of a heartbeat, Billy’s thick fingers in his hair. Soothing the worry away.

His father wanted a second opinion. Flew back from Brazil after another week, dragged Steve to the best doctor money could buy in the whole state. He’d spent the day being tested, poked and prodded and scanned multiple times, hours from home, Billy not allowed to come because the two men in Steve’s life didn’t get on in the slightest, only to be told the exact same thing.

Lung cancer. Caught early, but would still require chemotherapy.

Steve hadn’t really looked at his father much that day, wanted to be anywhere else in the world but another hospital, with the smell of disinfectant clawing at his skin and in his diseased lungs, but he glanced a look then at the man on his left, sitting so rigid in the chair provided it was like it was made of broken glass.

His father looked  _ disappointed _ . About what Steve never asked. Didn’t want to find out. Couldn’t take what he was sure the answer was.

_ How dare you get sick. _

Steve’s thumb worried a daisy. He’d felt a bald spot in the shower a few days ago. In reality, he’d tried to ignore a lot of what was happening. How he couldn’t keep food down all that much, how his back teeth just ached constantly, how all he wanted to do was sleep even on a good day. How much hair he’d wake up to on his pillow, quickly brushing it away before it could be seen. How Billy played with it less so he wouldn’t pull any out accidentally.

This was never said, but Steve wasn’t stupid.

So here he was, sat in front of the bathroom mirror, facing reality.

Billy walked in from the other room, holding the clippers they’d borrowed from Joyce who’d managed to borrow them from someone else. They locked eyes in the mirror. Blue meeting brown. Both exhausted. Steve’s parents were covering the cost of chemo, but Billy still had to pick up another job to keep their apartment once the effects of treatment hit Steve like a cannonball and he couldn’t work anymore.

The clippers were plugged in. Billy buzzed them a couple times to checked they worked. The sound cut through Steve like a knife.

“Last chance to back out,” Billy offered, a ghost of a smile on his lips.

Steve shook his head. Didn’t trust himself to speak. Didn’t want to crumble again. This had been his idea. This needed to happen. The sooner the better. Before he didn’t have a choice. He saw Billy sigh more than he heard it, before the clippers were turned back on and Billy started moving. Steve closed his eyes. Couldn’t look even if he wanted too. The sounds were more than enough. The high pitched metallic whine dulling as it ran along Steve’s scalp, forehead to the back of his neck in long strokes. He gripped the towel until his knuckles were white with it. Felt strands of hair fall around his hands and onto his lap, around his bare toes on the tiled floor.

Steve only looked when the clippers were off. The air far too silent after all that continuous noise. His head felt cold. A glance in the mirror confirmed everything. His hair was totally gone, buzzed away to nothing at all. It lay all over the place. All over him. Some had fallen in the sink. Years and years of work and careful maintenance gone in less than ten minutes.

Billy rubbed gently over his now bald head, down his neck to his shoulders and Steve swallowed thick, keeping emotion back. He knew it was stupid to be so caught up over his hair. It was falling out anyway, really it would only have been another month or two before this was getting done like it or not. But with his hair Steve didn’t look sick. He could still go to the store without attracting sympathetic looks. Now he would. No hair and drawn in tired eyes, face getting thin.

He looked like he had cancer.

“Well, least we know you don’t got a weird shaped head now,” Billy spoke, trying to break the tension. Steve just stared at himself, still trying to swallow down that bubble of tears that was threatening to burst. He was still gripping the towel tight, for all the good it had done. Billy hummed, looking around his handiwork in the mirror, eyes squinting together, trying to focus on something. 

“Think I missed a bit though…” he mused. 

Steve could only watch what happened next. 

Billy turned the clippers back on and dragged them through his own hair, a lump of golden curls landing at their feet. He just kept doing it, over and over again, blonde meeting brunette in a furry puddle, until Billy was as bald as Steve. He leant closer to the mirror and rubbed over his head, feeling for bits that might have been missed behind his ears.

“There, that’s better.”

Steve just stared. The bubble had burst and he was silently crying, fat tears rolling down his cheeks and into the towel and all the hair that tickled. Billy loved his hair as much as Steve had loved his own. The amount of products they had in the shower was a joke.

“You’re not in this alone,” Billy said softly with a little smile, looking directly into Steve’s waterlogged eyes through the mirror, before arms encased Steve’s shoulders, a small kiss placed on his head.

Steve had never been more in love than that exact moment.

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr page.](https://bird-in-a-cage.tumblr.com/) Come ask me stuff! Headcannons more than welcome!


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